Tim Bray · On Books

I’d be totally happy to buy an e-book for more or less what the author gets paid, plus a markup of maybe 100% to cover the costs of marketing and editing, as long as I can share it at a family-and-friends scale. It’d be a no-brainer.

But given the current arrangements, I’m being charged just a little bit less than I pay for paper and getting a whole lot less, and it just doesn’t feel like a good deal. Of course, a setup like I’m proposing would leave the publishing industry as we know it in ruins. Which wouldn’t bother me in the slightest as long as the authors and editors can still get paid.